Some 109 teachers will be placed in primary schools to assist students with various forms of learning disabilities, ranging from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, autism, Down Syndrome, neuromuscular diseases, emotional behavioural psychological abnormalities and auditory difficulties. So said Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh yesterday at the post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair.
He said between 1.6 per cent of primary school students throughout the country have varying degrees of special needs. The primary school population is approximately 126,000 students. “We have approximately 2,000 in the school population who have been diagnosed formerly in the areas of needing attention in special needs. We know there are more. One area we are having a lot of issues with is the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
“We did a research of almost 3,000 students from ECCE centres and from primary schools and we found that 25 per cent of the students did not need any type of support, another 25 per cent needed to focus on the education system, a third 25 per cent needed the intervention of the parents for support for education and the other 25 per cent were those found with the difficulties,” Gopeesingh said. He said the Ministry of Education over a period had been made aware of the need to have special education teachers, particularily trained in that area, to be able to deal with those students.
The University of the West Indies, Gopeesingh added, had been training teachers who came from the primary schools initially as assistant teachers. “That means they did not have their Bachelors of Education degree and who went to UTT many of them specialised with a Bachelors of Education in special education. We now have approximately 109 of those teachers who are teaching normally in the primary schools and not utilising their skills as special education teachers,” Gopeesingh said.
He said based on that it was decided to bring the 109 teachers out of the primary schools to utilise their services on a wider basis of the primary school spectrum. “So these special education teachers will be looking at all the students who have been identified as having some difficulties. “These teachers are now being pulled out of the system...instead of being one teacher in a particular class we will be utilising their skills across one in three or one in four primary schools,” Gopeesingh added. He said those teachers would then be replaced with “teacher ones.”
Saying that the principals have been asked to work with teachers to identify such special needs students, the Education Minister said that would enable the special education teachers to work with them on a one-on-one basis and in some case in groups. Gopeesingh said every effort was being made to ensure that special needs students were diagnosed properly.